misterbunsThey don't care about being embarrassed. They just want cameras on them. Their hatred is real, serious and disturbing. Ignoring them is the best thing to do. Putting them in front of a camera is always in bad taste.

AelricMeh. I like Mel Brooks stance on Nazi's, that they should be used as a joke and nothing more, better than the stance of totally ignoring something. These guys don't even attract the far right due to their anti-soldier stuff. The more they are shown for fools, the more likely their children will grow up to escape.

It's an academic difference in opinion, however. It's a sensationalist thing that the media will always cover in one way or the other.

misterbunsMel Brooks' stance on Nazism was a post WW2 thing though: the zeitgeist has already processed and rejected Nazism, also, Nazism was never a latent part of American culture so it's really always been a safe thing to make fun of and a harmless cultural force in America. Nazi Germany was something Americans were united against.

That isn't the case with homophobia. A lot of Americans believe things very similar to what WBC espouses and it really effects the lives of people in this country, so giving these people attention of any kind reinforces that ideology on some level, and also gives them what they want: a spotlight. I'd rather they were denied it for that reason alone than for the ideological reasons.

They do the same thing PETA does. They do crazy things to get on the news for free publicity. Fred Phelps is a monster, but his hatred of gay people no more real than his hatred of racial inequality or whatever the fuck they were supposedly selling those candy bars for. I'm not saying he likes gay people, he doesn't, but he was an active Democrat and he hasn't since become an active Republican. Can he really be the person he pretends to be if he hates gays, but not enough to throw in with the Republicans?

I fucking hate that people don't know who Phelps is or what he does. He's a terrible person in ways that make his anti-gay persona look like a fucking saint. I know you guys say you hate him, but it all reads to me like gushing admiration for his personal integrity.

Cena_markI guess they are very real and passionate, just as John Cena was when he threw Edge through 2 tables at Summerslam 06. It was amazing.

dairyqueenlatifahThe best thing about this is how utterly frustrated their faces get when no one gets the least bit bent by what they say.

Also, these guys probably believe the bullshit they spout through and through, but I often question whether the higher ups in the church (King Fred, and his daughter Shirley, for example) truly believe it as strongly as they claim.

They're a family of lawyers, and they file a lot of lawsuits with their opposition as a basis. I hardly think that's a coincidence.

They do the same thing PETA does. They do crazy things to get on the news for free publicity. Fred Phelps is a monster, but his hatred of gay people no more real than his hatred of racial inequality or whatever the fuck they were supposedly selling those candy bars for. I'm not saying he likes gay people, he doesn't, but he was an active Democrat and he hasn't since become an active Republican. Can he really be the person he pretends to be if he hates gays, but not enough to throw in with the Republicans?

I fucking hate that people don't know who Phelps is or what he does. He's a terrible person in ways that make his anti-gay persona look like a fucking saint. I know you guys say you hate him, but it all reads to me like gushing admiration for his personal integrity.

Quad9DamageMy understanding of Fred Phelps Sr. is that he is a perpetually angry man who cannot rest unless he has made someone suffer first. In his younger years he used to beat the everliving shit out of his wife and children on an almost daily basis, preferably with a mattock handle. He was also an attorney who channeled that neverending rage toward people on the witness stand, which is why he got disbarred.

The funeral protesting and the gay hate is an outlet he uses to express his anger and satisfy his craving for hurting others. He's too old and frail to batter his family half to death anymore, so he settles for offending America a mass scale.

In the meantime, he has made all that anger profitable. The family business is suing the shit out of people who hit or pass ordinances against WBC members. They win those cases on First Amendment grounds and then use the money to put food on the table.